The InvestaPRO is our latest feature that does the screening and thinking for you! Using Investa’s Proprietary Ranking System, the InvestaPro makes your life easier by simplifying the stock screening process by ranking stocks based on Investa’s proprietary formulas which will allow to zero-in on stocks of your choosing. Through our algo-generated watchlists, you can now objectively create a trading plan for the top stocks that are part of the list.
In this article, we’ll be going through a quick overview of the InvestaPRO to show you guys how to maximize our new prominent feature!
How to use InvestaPRO
To access InvestaPRO, you will first need an Investagrams account. As of today, the InvestaPRO is only accessible on mobile devices so you will need to download the Investagrams app on your phone if you haven’t downloaded it yet. If you have Investagrams app on your phone, simply update the app to access the InvestaPRO.
Once you open your Investagrams app on your mobile device, simply click the “APPS” tab on the lower right side of your screen then click INVESTAPRO.
On the home tab of the InvestaPRO you’ll see all the popular watchlists you can follow. We’ve made five algo-generated watchlists absolutely FREE for all users! The other premium watchlists are available for a small fee.
The “Tags” you see at the bottom of the watchlists are simply so you can choose which parameter matters most in your trading, so you can click that parameter then you will be redirected to specific watchlists that use the tag.
Once you click on a watchlist, you will see the stocks in order of importance based on Investa’s Proprietary Ranking System. Now you can easily see which names to highly prioritize based on the rankings. Simply click the name of the stock you would like to focus on then you can automatically check out its details, chart, or add it to your watchlist.
The following tab focuses all the watchlists you’ve chosen to follow. The top three stocks per watchlist are also highlighted for quick and easy viewing.
The search tabs show all the available watchlists on the InvestaPRO, you can easily find any watchlist you would like to follow here.
So what’s the difference between the free and premium watchlists? To keep it simple, the premium watchlists use much more ADVANCED parameters that filter out the best stocks to keep an eye on objectively. However, whether free or premium, all of these watchlists are ALGO GENERATED. This helps avoids any personal and subjective biases when screening for stocks.
Just like we mentioned in our previous article release, our team created the InvestaPRO to make your trading much more easier and to add convenience to your trading. We understand that not everyone has the time screen for stocks in the evening or has the knowledge on how to use different screeners. Hopefully the InvestaPRO will not only create an impact on your trading, but also on the time you spend in front of a monitor.
Being a consistently successful trader is not a simple task, especially considering we’re playing in a zero-sum game. At first glance, many may imagine that being a trader means staying isolated in a room staring at a screen for the whole day. Well, that isn’t a lie. There are some who choose to become lone wolves, and there isn’t anything wrong with that. However, one thing we have to remember is being a human means we were biologically social animals. Sometimes, finding a community can be the right move to progress as a trader.
The life of a trader, especially here in the Philippines, can get lonely since not a lot of people can relate to our challenges and struggles. Given that there’s approximately around 1% of our total population investing in the stock market, and the majority of those people are most likely long term investors, we tend to just keep all our trading problems to ourselves. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that, until everything starts to pile up.
As social animals, we operate at our best when it’s with other fellow human beings. Now that doesn’t mean we need to begin trading as a group, but it wouldn’t hurt to find a trading buddy or two to share your experiences with. Or even better, try to find a community of traders who can help speed up your growth. We’re pretty sure you’ve heard this quote before, but we just want to reiterate it: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
So do we recommend finding a community? Absolutely!
However, just as choosing who will be part of your inner circle, you will have to choose your community wisely. You become who you spend most of your time with, so being with a community that embodies bad habits and disempowering beliefs will only derail your growth as a trader. So now the question is, how do you find the right community?
FINDING A COMMUNITY
1. ASK
Now before we focus on how to find the RIGHT community, let’s begin on how to actually find or form a community of traders. This one might be obvious, but it’s something people tend to avoid doing. If you want to try and find a community of traders all you have to do is ask. Post on Investagrams that you’re trying to find or form a group or traders who will help each other on the road towards profitability. You can also chat traders you follow using the InvestaChat to see if they’re near your area and willing to meet up for coffee or even join any traders’ community related to your interest/preference.
2. ATTEND EVENTS
Another great way to meet new people and potentially join a community is by attending investing/trading related events. It doesn’t need to be a big event that only happens once a year, you can find great people even in smaller seminars. Not only do you learn more about trading by attending events, but also gain the opportunity to build relationships with like-minded people.
FINDING THE RIGHT COMMUNITY
1. VALUES
When finding or even creating a community, one of the key considerations needs to be the values the people emulate. This may differ from person to person, but it’s important that the people within the group share the same values. Some great characteristics or values members should have could be honesty, integrity, passion, perseverance, dedication, accountability, openness, and the like.
2. VISION DRIVEN
You want to be with people who have a vision of the future. You want to be surrounded by GOAL-DRIVEN individuals who not only have goals for themselves but who also set out goals for the group as well. When you’re spending time with people who have a vision of what their future will become, you also strive to do the same especially if you’re conservative when it comes to setting big and audacious goals.
3. SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE AT HIGHER LEVELS
One of the best ways to improve is to learn from the direct experiences of someone who has been where you currently are. When you surround yourself with like-minded people you guys talk about the same things. However, when you surround yourself with people who have put in the 10,000 hours in the craft you want to master, that’s when things get tremendously great.
As we enter a new year, there is one thing that is surely in every trader’s mind right now: how can I trade better this 2020? 2018 and 2019 were no doubt very challenging years, even for the best of us. However, there was a key difference between both years; the 2019 market was challenging on a whole other level. 2017 was a roaring bull market which made a ton of investors a lot of money, and a lot of people resigned to become full time traders. However, in early 2018, little did we know that we were at the tail end of that amazing bull run. Before the bulls went home they made their final run in the form of $NOW, $HVN, and $VITA to name a few. But when the world needed them most, they vanished. (Yes Avatar pun intended).
But there’s a huge disparity between the 2018 and 2019 market environment; in 2018 we were in a bear market, while in 2019 we were in a whipsaw market. After the bull run topped at 9k levels, we immediately experienced a turn in the market. We were in a downtrend, and it was obvious. And that’s the best part, the fact that it was obvious. Knowing that we were in a bearish environment, any trader could’ve simply remained in cash and wait for potential outliers.
The next best part about 2018 is despite being in an overall downtrend, there was a ton of speculation going on. I’m pretty sure most of us remembers the telcoserye and how that went down. There were also other outliers like $ATN, $FB, $PPG $ABA, $VUL, etc. There were obvious times where we needed to remain in cash, and there were obvious times where speculation led to several opportunities. 2019 was a different animal.
Starting off 2019 was actually a good period, bears were still mostly in control but there were still a couple of outliers like $WLCON, $GREEN, $HOUSE, $PHEN, and $HLCM. But the latter parts of the 2nd quarter all the way to the end of the year was totally different. Yes there were still opportunities in names such as $KPPI, $PPG, and $MWC, but for the most part we were in a whipsaw environment.
Unlike in 2018, the 2019 market had no clear direction. If you didn’t have a macro view and relied purely on technicals, the market has basically been sideways. Every time the sentiment shifted negatively, that’s when the index begins to rebound. Then every time the index tries to break key resistance levels, it gets sold off a few days after. It was “A Death By A Thousand Cuts” type of scenario.
Nevertheless, it’s a start of a new year. We’re not in blue skies yet, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to improve our trading. Let’s take this beginning of a new decade as an opportunity to become better and wiser traders. Here are a few tips on how to trade better this 2020:
TIPS TO TRADE BETTER THIS 2020
1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY
One of the key things we all need to begin doing this year is to take responsibility for ALL of our outcomes. This includes all the mistakes, difficult periods, and setbacks. There’s always one common phrase we hear whether it’s from our trader friends or on social media, “Hirap ng market eh!” That’s a phrase we need to stop saying in order to truly take responsibility.
Blaming the market for a drawdown is an excuse. We do not control what the market does, so what we should focus on are the factors we have control over. We have control over our entry, stop loss, position size, strategy, work ethic, discipline, and the like. It’s time to begin focusing on those and taking full responsibility for all our results and outcomes.
2. JOURNAL RELIGIOUSLY
In his book, Think and Trade Like a Champion, Mark Minervini mentions how conducting regular post-performance reviews made him a market wizard. It doesn’t take much to journal every trade you make, all it takes is the discipline to turn this into a habit. Even summarizing all your trade logs doesn’t take much time since everything is automated these days.
If you’re an InvestaPrime+ subscriber and have access to the InvestaJournal, all the fancy graphs and advanced analytics are automatically computed and shown after every trade log is entered. The same goes if you have a handy excel sheet. Most of the effort happens when you actually analyze all the numbers and statistics. As Mark Ritchie, famously known Momentum Master, said, “You find some of the best ‘Aha’ moments when you study your previous trades.”
3. RISK MANAGEMENT
You’ve probably heard this over and over: “Cut your losses and let your winners run.” It’s also most likely in almost all trading books just simply rephrased to avoid boredom. Well, it’s said again and again for a reason: IT’S FACTS. There’s a reason why the importance of risk management is in most trading books and interviews with some of the best traders.
Ed Seykota, world-known market wizards, said that three key things you need to do to have a CHANCE of being a successful trader is: 1. Cut your losses 2. Cut your losses 3. Cut your losses. Ask any market wizard or successful trader you know, they will always mention that risk management is key to becoming profitable.
4. PREPAREDNESS
Here’s another thing we hear all the time, “Have a trading plan.” It’s also probably something most of us do religiously already. But there are still some out there who trade on impulsive behavior, which may work in some cases but for the most part, will not benefit you in the long run. Trading out of sheer impulse may get you a winner or two, but do this on a consistent basis and you’ll eventually run into a stock that goes up 15% in three minutes just to go down another -20% the next. If you want to trade better this 2020, you need to have a plan for all scenarios.
5. COMMITMENT
You don’t lose when you lose all your money, you lose when you QUIT. Any trader can make one winning trade that can change their life, but to make money consistently from the markets over a long period of time requires a deep-rooted commitment to becoming the best trader you can be. In the words of Javi Medina during InspirePH, “You have to COMMIT to MASTERY!” Without that undying commitment for the game, small bumps on the road will bring you down instantly. If you want to trade better this 2020, you NEED to have that undying commitment.
Also, only those who commit to mastery put in the work required to become great. Always remember, anything great won’t come easy. You have to dedicate a tremendous amount of time to be one of the best at this craft, you have to become a perpetual learner. When the going gets rough, when your back is against the wall, and all odds are against you, the only thing that will keep you up is your undying commitment to become the trader you always BELIEVED you can become.
We all know that beginning your investing journey at a young age will reap tremendous benefits in the future. Even if it’s not in the context of trading; if you’ve attended a basic investing seminar you would’ve probably heard that the younger you start, the better. Imagine how much more impactful it would be if you started trading as a student. Nevertheless, whether it’s trading or investing, starting on your journey towards financial freedom at a young age is a HUGE advantage.
If you’re a student reading this article you may be saying to yourself, “I’m too young, trading as a student is impossible” or “Investing is only for those who are already working.” Let us be the first to tell you, there is NOTHING hindering you from starting your journey at a young age. The only thing stopping you from achieving financial freedom is your own disempowering beliefs. In order to succeed in trading as a student, you will have to believe with all your heart and soul that YOU can do it. Your age will never define what you can or can’t do.
But don’t go thinking that everything’s going to come easy since you started early. It’s without a shred a doubt going to be a difficult challenge, but great things shouldn’t come easy anyway, right? One of the defining factors that will lead to future success in the market is your willingness to PUT IN THE WORK! Now that we got that out of the way, here are a few advantages of starting your trading journey as a student:
ADVANTAGES OF TRADING AS A STUDENT
1. TIME
The biggest advantage young people have above all else is TIME. You have more time to learn, make mistakes, refine your strategy, and learn more about the markets. However, you will also need to have patience in a longer-term perspective and understand that the success you seek in trading won’t come quickly.
We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can do in five. What’s important is you have to understand that achieving success in the markets is a long process, but also have the balance to know that a ton of work will need to be done on a daily basis. Oh yeah and you also benefit from compounding interest, but you already know that.
2. LESS RESPONSIBILITIES
Don’t get us wrong, we know that you all have your own responsibilities and circumstances. Being in school feeling academic pressures is no easy task to deal with. However, that’s mostly where the struggle ends for most students.
You don’t have to provide for your own family yet, you don’t have to pay for someone else’s education, you don’t have to deal with real estate, tax, and the like. You guys are at the time of your lives where you may possibly have the least amount of responsibilities to deal with. It’s much harder for a 40 year old person to go all-in on becoming a great trader considering that person may have a full-time job and three kids.
3. YOU BECOME FINANCIALLY LITERATE
Before you even begin on your investing journey, we all know that you will need to start saving up money first. By wanting to start trading as a student, then that means you also build good financial habits you carry over once you get older. Eventually, you will also begin building an emergency fund, getting some form of insurance, all while going through your trading journey.
TOMATRADER’S TIPS FOR TRADING AS A STUDENT
We have a good amount of teammates here in Investagrams who began trading the stock market while still in school. Our youngest teammate, TomaTrader, began his investing journey at the age of 16 when he was still in first-year college. We asked him to give a few tips and tricks for everyone looking to navigate their way through the financial markets while navigating their way through life as a student as well.
What’s up, mga ka-Investa! I’m more than thrilled to share a few tips I have for all the current and aspiring student traders out there. First of all, just the fact that you’re reading this article up to this point shows a level of dedication that only a few have. So kudos for that! Now let’s get going with a few tips I used when I was still a student trader:
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #1: ASK PERMISSION
Now, this tip is pretty basic, you may have some professors who don’t allow the use of gadgets during their class or the use of gadgets for things unrelated to what’s being done in class. I got caught a couple of times myself, so I simply asked all my professors if I could trade during class. Well, they all allowed me and it was great!
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #2: USE THE RESTROOM WISELY
Now before I continue, I’d just like to say that I do not promote cutting your classes just to trade. BUT I didn’t say you couldn’t use the restroom. There may be an instance where a professor may not allow you to trade during his/her class, so the only way for you to quickly execute on your trades is to step out of the class. What better way than to use the restroom really quick, right? But make sure you come back after a few minutes!
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #3: SET ALERTS
This may sound like a plug since I’m already working at Investagrams, but the INVESTAWATCHER played a huge role in my ability to latch on to huge winners even if I was busy with school. Even if I was allowed to trade during class I didn’t just glue my eyes to the screen. So with the InvestaWatcher’s real-time alerts I was able to quickly pull out my phone or laptop and quickly execute on my already set out trading plan.
To know more about TomaTrader and see his market and stock insights, you may follow him via this link: Tomatrader at Investa
He has been a user of Investagrams since June 2017 and has definitely impacted the learning curves of the newbies who are just starting out on their trading journeys. Chart Archer shares, on a constant basis, content created by Investagrams or other traders that can benefit those who are new to the stock market.
Here’s one of Chart Archer’s posts where he shares several pieces of content created by Investagrams specifically catered for newbies. We here at Investagrams aim to be the catalyst to enable 10 million Filipinos to invest in the financial markets, which is why we continuously create content in written, audio, picture, and video format that can help anyone learn about trading the markets. This is why we are extremely grateful to Chart Archer for consistently sharing our content to help others take control of their financial destiny.
Trading the financial markets is a zero-sum game, meaning in order to gain a profit another person will need to lose money or miss out on an opportunity to make money. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t people who also look to help others take advantage of the ultimate equalizer of wealth. All of us enter the financial markets to achieve financial freedom, but only a few choose to help others along the way. People like Chart Archer are the reason why our community continues to grow and strengthen.
Chart Archer doesn’t only post content created by Investagrams, he also shares the content of other high-level traders as well.
In addition, Chart Archer also posts some of his chart reviews and forecasts on a particular stock that he is monitoring that could help as guidance (but not a recommendation!) for you if you are looking at the same chart as well. See the samples below:
We wanted to keep this feature short and sweet, so THANK YOU Chart Archer for being a big contributor in the health and growth of our community. Without a doubt in our minds, we are sure that you have impacted the lives of many aspiring trades; that’s something to be very proud of.
Happy New Year Ka-Investa! A new decade has begun. We have a lot of things in store for you this year: one of them being the Investa Trading Grounds 2020 Season 1.
We, even before the beginning of the new decade, dedicated a huge amount of effort towards continuous innovation. You all know what our vision is; to enable 10,000,000 Filipinos to invest in the markets. However, we understood early on that not everyone may be hooked on trading. This is why we created a more fun and entertaining way of interacting with the stock market: the Investagrams Trading Grounds (ITG).
The amount of love and enjoyment we felt when everyone was able to play ITG for the first time was intense. Little did we know that we were able to create a gamified learning platform to make compounding your capital in the ultimate equalizer of wealth enjoyable. If you guys thought what we first released was the final output of ITG, think again!
Our team continued to find more ways to rapidly improve Investagrams Trading Grounds to make the whole experience even more gamified and enjoyable. What better way to make ITG more gamified than to implement mechanics similar to other online games? This is why we created a competitive environment: The Investa Trading Grounds 2020 Season 1.
We are officially launching Investa Trading Grounds 2020 Season 1 — a lot of amazing rewards and surprises await those who will be on top of their game until the end of the season!
Improve your strategy as you compete with other traders
Learn new techniques and disciplines in the process
The Investagrams Trading Grounds 2020 Season 1 brings many prizes
For the past three years, we have been hosting the Investagrams Trading Cuo – BIGGEST stock trading competition in the Philippines. The goal of the trading cup is to find and recognize some of the BEST traders in the country along with helping others jumpstart their investing journeys. Aside from your usual trading competition where we simply send over the cash prize to the winners, we require the Top 10 participants to defend their strategies in front of a live audience.
In line with our vision of increasing the number of Filipino investors to 10,000,000, we also want to inspire aspiring traders/investors or help shorten the learning curve of experienced traders through these defenses. Our Top 10 participants share their trading journey, top strategies, best and worst trades during the competition, and words of wisdom to the audience.
Every year, we look forward to meeting new and upcoming traders who are able to rise the ranks in our competition. Trading in and of itself is already extremely challenging, especially psychologically. That’s why countless market wizards talk about how important psychology is to have an edge in trading. Imagine what the participants of the Trading Cup have to go through; they don’t only have to manage their psychology in terms of their usual trading, they also have to handle seeing their rankings fluctuate on a daily basis.
This is especially true for the Investagrams Trading Cup 2019, the rankings were EXTREMELY close until the last day! The difference in total profit of the 2nd placer vs the 3rd placer was only 500 pesos, the 4th and 5th placers’ profits were only separated by 200 pesos, 6th to 9th place was only separated by less than 1,000 pesos, while the 10th and 11th placer were only separated by 100 pesos!
Investagrams Trading Cup 2019 Top 10 Regular Winners
The best thing about the past three Trading Cups is they were all done in different market environments. In 2017 we were in an amazing bull run which made it much easier to latch on to breakouts and ride winners for bigger moves. (Click here to watch the Breaking Highs Defense recap). In 2018 we were in a downtrend market, but there was a ton of speculation especially during the third telco fest. (Relive the moment of Outliers Defense and watch the video here). 2019’s competition was probably the most difficult as we were in a sideways market, which means everyone was prone to major whipsaws.
During the duration of the Investagrams Trading Cup 2019, there were also little to no speculative names popping out, not as much as compared to 2018. There were days that outliers could barely be found. Trading, let alone competing, in a whipsaw market is a very difficult task. Nevertheless, the WINNERS of the 2019 Trading Cup didn’t use that as an excuse to underperform. They showed true RESILIENCY in the face of adversity.
You’ve seen their results; it’s a product of hard work, perseverance, and extreme dedication. However, only one question remains: How did they do it? What strategy did they use? Learn from the WINNERS of the Investagrams Trading Cup 2019 during the competition defense this coming February 2020!
Watch out for our official announcement of the defense SOON!
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